The Various Magic Systems in GURPS
This article is about how magic has been modeled in GURPS rather then GURPS Magic. Magic in Classic GURPS The first systems The first magic system for GURPS appeared in the first edition of GURPS Fantasy and was later moved to GURPS Magic. The main system revolved around Magery but there was an option for Clerics to have magic but it was effectively a limited version of magery (no bonuses for learning spells and cost was determined by the number of colleges the cleric could use but for all practical purposes they were limited mages.10 points for one college, 12 for two, 15 for three) spells of other colleges could be learned but were castable only in high mana and above areas. Wizards were anyone who used spell based magic while mages were those with the magery advantage. GURPS Supers (1990) GURPS Supers was the first book to come up with a totally different system for magic. Using the advantage Magic Power abilities were bought as if they were superpowers. The main problem was there was no information on how (or even if) this interacted with the magery based system or the vague magery like advantage clerics could have. GURPS Religion (1994) GURPS Religion totally reworked Clerical magic replacing Magery with Power Investiture, mana with Sanctity, and changing several of the aspects of the old clerical system. The one detail that was not expressly explained was if Magical Resistance had any baring on clerical spells.It was implied that it didn't but it wasn't expressly stated one way or the other. GURPS Voodoo (1996) Even though GURPS Religion had addressed shamanistic magic in general and touched on Voodoo this work introduced yet another system. Here, instead of the advances of Magery or Power Investiture, the advantage Initiation (which determined the strength of a character’s connection with the supernatural) played a role. Each level of Initiation allowed the character to gain certain abilities. GURPS Spirits (2002) GURPS Spirits dropped the whole Initiation ranking system of Voodoo and replaced it with a far more streamlined Ritual Magic system. It also introduced the Ritual Adept advantage (each level removed one component of a ritual spell) and expressly stated "Magic Resistance does not protect against rituals." As with GURPS Religion mana was dispensed with but unlike that work nothing really replaced it other then a vague "it works through the powers of the spirit world." This was the work that had the term "magician" connected to anyone with the Ritual Adept advantage. GURPS 4e It had been realized that magic in GURPS was hardly "universal" anymore and a mammoth streamlining was needed. GURPS Magic cut everything down to Magery and Power Investiture as well as reworking Ritual Magic to be mana based. GURPS Fantasy introduced the concept of "natural" magic and GURPS Thaumatology provided the tools to alter either of these two systems into any form needed or wanted. The Ritual Adept advantage became Path/Book Adept in GURPS Thaumatology and it was possible for Adepts to have Magery (Path/Book). The concept of Ritual Space which depending on the setting may or may not be related to Sanctity or Mana was introduced. References